Alice Johnson Is Free, But Is the Trump Administration Actually Committed to Criminal Justice Reform?

When Kim Kardashian West walked into the White House on May 30, 2018, to ask for clemency on behalf of 63-year-old Alice Marie Johnson—a great-grandmother serving a life sentence in federal prison for a nonviolent drug offense—many viewed the meeting as a simple publicity stunt, especially after Donald Trump released a photo he’d taken with Kardashian West in the Oval Office.

A week later, however, Trump granted Johnson’s clemency request, guaranteeing she would not die in prison and sparking a renewed conversation around the Trump administration's position on criminal justice reform.

Before Kardashian West joined the push to release Johnson, the American Civil Liberties Union had also spotlighted the 63-year-old's story in its report on the harshness of life sentences for nonviolent offenders. (She was also listed on the Can-Do Foundation’s clemency request list.) In many ways Johnson's case illustrates both the devastating impact the War on Drugs has had on black women—who are incarcerated at twice the rate of their white counterparts—as well as the increasing number of women—across racial categories—who have been locked up over the past three decades.

Since 1980 the number of women in prisons and jails has increased by 700 percent, most for nonviolent offenses like Johnson’s. Unlike their male counterparts, women in prison face unique challenges: The majority have minor children, who may be thrown into foster care because of their mother’s arrest, and incarcerated women are often forced to live in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions and do not always have access to feminine hygiene products.

While many praised the White House for intervening on Johnson’s behalf, others pointed out that policies proposed by the Trump administration—stricter punishments for drug offenses, for example, and even proposing the death penalty for drug dealers—would ensure women will continue to get swept up in the same hell Johnson had just escaped. So how committed, exactly, is the Trump administration to real criminal justice reform?

Trump did reference prison reform in his January 2018 State of the Union Address, saying he wanted to "help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance." And proponents of prison and sentencing reform, like Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), are hopeful legislators can still come together to fix the criminal justice system.

“This is something that should not be thought of as even bipartisan; it should be a nonpartisan issue, and I feel optimistic that we can appeal to people across the aisle,” Sen. Harris told Glamour via email.

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“We have opportunities right in front of us. Conservatives have advocated for a better approach to drug addiction. Eight in ten Americans who voted for Trump say criminal justice reform is important or very important to them,” she explains. “So, I believe there’s a real opportunity, and the opportunity here is to break people out of the demographic boxes we’ve put them in.”

Recently, White House advisor and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—a backer of criminal justice reform—won a legislative victory when the First Step Act passed the House of Representatives in May. Sponsored by Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.), and supported by Trump, the bill would allocate $50 million a year (over five years) to a variety of prison reform programs—increasing both access to rehabilitation and vocational programs and the amount of “good time credits” inmates can earn toward their release, for example. The bill also bans the shackling of pregnant and postpartum women, and requires prisoners be held within 500 driving miles of their families. Rep. Jeffries called the First Step Act “a victory for all Americans who believe in justice and the power of redemption,” but several members of Congress, including Sen. Harris, have criticized the bill for being inadequate.

“We must pass comprehensive criminal justice reform that takes on sentencing and prison reform,” Sen. Harris says. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, she cosponsored the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act with Iowa Republican, Senator Chuck Grassley. Unlike the First Step Act, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act takes direct aim at changing the sentencing policies that have lead nonviolent offenders to receive excessively long sentences. It would also establish reentry and recidivism reduction programs, address conditions inside federal facilities, and establish the National Criminal Justice Commission, which would review the entire system and recommend further changes.

“The House bill leaves out sentencing reform entirely, and as a result, does not fundamentally address America’s mass incarceration crisis,” Sen. Harris argues. “Alice Johnson, and those like her, are put in prison for life because our sentencing laws are too harsh—especially for nonviolent drug offenders.”

"I’m not trying to make friends with the administration. I’m trying to get my people free.”

The fight over whether or not the Senate should pass the First Step Act while working on a bill that addresses sentencing reform has caused a rift among criminal justice reform proponents both inside D.C. and across the country. (Many arguing for a comprehensive bill have voiced concerned that a two-step approach wouldn’t pass.) Prison reform groups like Right on Crime, #Cut50, and the National Urban League have supported the First Step Act, while organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law have spoken out against the bill.
“There’s real division right now, even among advocates of criminal justice reform,” says Kara Gotsch, director of strategic initiatives at the Sentencing Project, an organization that advocates for “a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system.”

“The federal prison system is in crisis,” Gotsch says. “Despite declines in the population in recent years, there continues to be significant overcrowding. For example, there’s a waiting list of 16,000 people to participate in literacy programs, and that’s the most basic level of rehabilitation they can offer, and they can’t even provide that in a timely fashion to the people who need it.”

Gotsch herself sides with those who take issue with the current bill. “My concern with the First Step Act is that it’s really just a drop in the bucket and it’s not going to offer the comprehensive and deep changes that need to happen,” she says. “If Congress and the administration choose to ignore the overcrowding crisis and the unfair sentencing system, they will never achieve their goal of prison reform.”

On the other hand, formerly incarcerated activist Topeka K. Sam, founder of The Ladies of Hope Ministries, a group that helps women transition back into society after getting out of prison, says lawmakers shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

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“I’ve been advocating for the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act [introduced last July by Sen. Cory Booker], and all of those things are within [The First Step] bill,” Sam says, noting the proposed legislation doesn’t address sentencing issues but does offer relief for people who are currently in prison.

“There is an opportunity for people to come home in that bill. There is an opportunity for people who are left inside to have access to resources and new opportunities for them to be able to change their lives before they come home,” Sam says. “As a person who has experienced incarceration, when I look at this legislation I look at how this can help the people that I left behind.”

But back to Alice Johnson: Amy Ralston Povah—founder of the Can-Do Foundation—and Sam were integral in Johnson’s release, helping to bring her story to the attention of Mic cofounder Jake Horowitz, who produced a video about Johnson that was viewed millions of times—catching the eye of one Kim Kardashian West. While Sam agrees that many of Trump’s policies are harmful to communities of color, she’s chosen to work within the system (and with members of the Trump administration) to advocate for other people currently serving long sentences in prison like William Underwood, Santra Rucker, Michelle West, and Bernetta Willis. It may be that the secret to getting the president's attention is getting issues like this into the public eye—and onto social media.

“I’m not trying to make friends with the administration,” Sam explains. “I’m trying to get my people free.”

In May, Sam spoke at a White House prison reform summit alongside Kushner, Van Jones, and several other advocates hoping to give policymakers an inside look into life for the incarcerated.

“Our people [incarcerated people] aren’t interested in who’s in office, Republican or Democrat, red or blue—they care about freedom,” Sam says. “Despite how I may feel personally, I have to put those things aside. It’s my responsibility to the people I serve and the people I left behind to be able to create opportunities for them under any administration.”

No matter where they stand on the bills working their way through Congress, proponents of criminal justice reform all ultimately want to improve the conditions behind bars while also ensuring that others aren’t swallowed by the system. “Nearly one-third of all female prisoners in the world are right here in the United States, and the fastest-growing segment of our prison and jail population is women,” Sen. Harris told Glamour.com. "We know there’s clearly a problem, and the answer is not to build more prisons.”

And she’s right: According to a recent report by The Sentencing Project, the number of women and girls in prisons and jails has increased by 700 percent since 1980. Reform advocates agree something has got to change.

“We need to be smarter. We all know from the public health model that one of the best, most effective, and cheapest ways to deal with an epidemic, health or crime, is prevention first,” Sen. Harris continued. “We need to be examining the root causes of this incarceration problem and focus on preventing women from being incarcerated in the first place.”